Emergency rescue teams on Tuesday were searching through the rubble of collapsed buildings hit by an earthquake that killed at least 1,400 people in eastern Afghanistan, according to the local authorities, as aid from foreign donors began to trickle in despite a reluctance to send funds to the Taliban-ruled country.
Entire villages remained cut off from emergency workers in the mountainous areas of Kunar, the hardest hit of four provinces affected by the 6.0-magnitude earthquake that rocked Afghanistan and parts of neighboring Pakistan on Sunday night.
The Red Crescent said on Tuesday that at least 3,251 people had been injured, and about 8,000 homes destroyed.
The Taliban evacuated more than 600 people to Jalalabad, the closest large city, and to Kabul, the capital, aboard three helicopters on Monday, according to Kate Carey, deputy head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Afghanistan.
“They’re on the front lines of this rescue operation,” Ms. Carey said about the Taliban-led rescue efforts.
U.N. agencies were scrambling to recommission a helicopter from its humanitarian service that had been grounded as a result of aid cuts this year.
“We need a crew for that helicopter and that will take 48 hours,” Ms. Carey noted. “Air support is critical for emergency response in this kind of mountainous area.”
The disaster hit Afghanistan less than two years after another earthquake killed more than 1,300 people in the west of the country and as Afghanistan faces an economic, humanitarian and environmental crisis.
Four years since taking over the country, the Taliban have largely failed to secure the international recognition they need to attract foreign investment and development support.
Emergency aid has also become scarcer as the United States and other major donors have cut, suspended or reduced their humanitarian contributions to Afghanistan. Last year, the United States contributed more than 45 percent of the aid supplied to the country, but that plummeted after the Trump administration suspended the United States Agency for International Development and other foreign aid programs. U.N. agencies estimated before the earthquake that Afghanistan needed $2.4 billion in humanitarian funding this year, but they say that less than 30 percent of that sum has been received.
Britain on Tuesday said that it would commit about $1.3 million in emergency support for those affected by the disaster. David Lammy, the British foreign secretary, said in a statement that the money would be distributed via the International Federation for the Red Cross and the United Nations’ sexual and reproductive health agency to ensure “aid reaches those in need and does not go to the Taliban.”
Many countries are similarly wary of committing funds that may end up in the hands of the Taliban government.
A report by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction published last month found, “The Taliban use every means at their disposal, including force, to ensure that aid goes where they want it to go, as opposed to where donors intend.”
The European Union is set to work with UNICEF, according to Sherine Ibrahim, the Afghanistan director for the International Rescue Committee, a nonprofit. The U.N. office for humanitarian affairs said it had unlocked $5 million in emergency funds.
Homa Nader, acting head of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in Afghanistan, said, “A lot of help and assistance is still needed.” She added that access to many areas had not been cleared and that transporting tents into remote mountainous villages was a challenge.
Before the earthquake, more than half of Afghanistan’s 42 million people were already in need of humanitarian assistance. About 3.5 million children under 5 are malnourished, according to UNICEF.
Samira Sayed Rahman, advocacy director at Save the Children Afghanistan, said in a statement, “The true scale of the devastation is still emerging, but we know that children are always the most vulnerable in the aftermath of a disaster.”
Elian Peltier is an international correspondent for The Times, covering Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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